


Flappy Limbs of Want

by Winklepicker



Series: Clydeland Chronicles [4]
Category: Crash Pad (2017), Kylux adjacents - Fandom, Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: Clydeland, Crack and Angst, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Other, Wings of Desire au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:26:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21593779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winklepicker/pseuds/Winklepicker
Summary: Stensland falls for Clyde.
Relationships: Clyde Logan/Stensland (Crash Pad)
Series: Clydeland Chronicles [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1233800
Comments: 137
Kudos: 42





	1. Fallen

**Author's Note:**

> Stensland’s angelic pronouns here are “one”.
> 
> This is the Clydeland Wings of Desire crack AU nobody asked for, except for Stensland who fell out of that taxi, blinked drunkenly at the night sky and asked, “where did I come from?”
> 
> Each chapter begins with a few lines from Lied Vom Kindsein (Song of Childhood) by Peter Handke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Als das Kind Kind war,
> 
> wußte es nicht, daß es Kind war,
> 
> alles war ihm beseelt,
> 
> und alle Seelen waren eins.

The riot of long legs and flame-burnished hair and shapely butt that had fallen in a crumpled heap in the middle of the road wriggled oneself into a more human-shaped shape, stood on unsteady legs, craned one’s neck to the sky and murmured, “Where did I come from?” The chorus of honking horns and angry yells to get the hell off the road went unacknowledged. 

A man passing by ran out to one, laid a warm hand on one’s back. One’s eyes rolled closed and a smile crept wide along one’s face. That hand was so warm, one could feel the outline of each finger, imagined feeling the pulse. These humans with their blood. So warm.

“Holy shit, man. Are you okay? You’re bleeding.”

Everything here was so fast. So noisy. So bright. One fluttered one’s eyes open again and cocked one’s head at the man who was looking at one with a worried furrow on his brow.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

One blinked at him again. One looked around. One used to have a name, in the before. There _was_ a before, one was certain. A before before this when one had a home and a name and a reason. One wondered what one’s reason and home and name was now. 

One was surrounded by words, words, words, plastered on buildings all around one. There. A tasteful sign above a window that read Gabor Stensl and Associates. Though from one’s vantage point on the road, the words “Gabor” and “Associates” were obscured behind the branches of a sycamore tree, so one read aloud only what one could see. 

“Stensl and,” one said. “My name is Stensland.” And one grinned at the man.

“Stensland?” the man looked unconvinced. “Okay, Stensland. I’m Lyle and I think we better get you to a hospital buddy.”

Stensland smiled, “Oh, I’m perfectly fine. Thank you for your concern.”

Lyle leaned closer, squinting. “You’re bleeding,” he said, touching the back of his own head. “There.”

“I’m bleeding?” Stensland ran one’s hand down the back of one’s head. It came back sticky with blood. One stared at one’s hand and then licked it. “Huh, it tastes…” one stopped mid-sentence and thrust one’s hand at Lyle’s face. “Is this red?”

Lyle rocked back. “Woah, dude, yeah. That’s red.”

Stensland stared closer at one’s hand, ran a finger through the blood. “Red,” one repeated. “It’s bolder than I imagined.”

“O—kay,” said Lyle, looking very much like a man who wished he’d carried on walking on his way to work.

“And that’s blue, yes?” Stensland pointed up at the sky.

Lyle craned his neck following Stensland’s finger. “Not really. That’s kind of grey. White and grey.”

“Oh.” Stensland peered around, one’s new eyes seeking the world. One pointed at the grass on the verge.

“Green?” Lyle said, then pointed at his jeans, “Oh hey, this is blue.”

“Ha!” Stensland bent low to take a closer look. “Blue,” one whispered to oneself before straightening.

“You sure you don’t want to get checked out? I think maybe you hit your head.”

A sudden clang of metal hitting the ground behind him made Lyle jump and whirl around. A beautifully ornate breastplate lay undamaged, still rocking from its fall.

Stensland shot him a gentle smile. “I have to go now. I’m looking for someone.” One held one’s hand out. “It was nice to meet you, Lyle.”

Lyle stared at the bloody fingers, deciding to nod instead. “Nice to meet you too Stensland, but, uh, before you go…”

“Hm?”

“You might want to find some clothes there, buddy.”

Stensland peered down at oneself. One’s nakedness surprised one, but it was the sight between one’s legs that caused one to yelp, “Good Lord, what the hell are those?”

Stensland’s memories were disappearing. The harder one tried to cling to them the further they got. Like dreams, turning to vapour the moment one caught hold. 

One remembered why one’d decided to take the plunge, to give up one’s wings and become mortal. One’d fallen for someone, fallen in love, fallen head over heels. One’d know him as soon as one saw him but where to begin? 

One had sold one’s armour to buy clothes, but one had armed oneself with something even better—memory.

Stensland uncrumpled the napkin in one’s pocket. One’d scrawled down as much as one could remember as soon as one could but even so, all one had was this:

A small sketch one’d captured, more Picasso than a likeness  
A word—Duck  
And a name—Clyde.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the child was a child,
> 
> it didn’t know that it was a child,
> 
> everything was soulful,
> 
> and all souls were one.


	2. Taken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not so cracky this chapter, but I promise it will generally be cracky. I think.
> 
> Some warning for angst and brief but bloody mention of how Clyde’s hand was lost.
> 
> Als das Kind Kind war,
> 
> war es die Zeit der folgenden Fragen:
> 
> Warum bin ich ich und warum nicht du?
> 
> Warum bin ich hier und warum nicht dort?

The first night in juvie, Clyde was terrified. He curled into a tight little ball on the cot he’d been assigned, knobbly knees up to his chest, and half-listened to one roommate listing off every school he’d been suspended from, while another jerked off on his bunk with exactly zero privacy fucks to give.

Thoughts roiled through Clyde’s head. Who were the good guys, the bad guys? Should he keep his head down? Try to make friends? Would they make him eat floppy, sad bacon? Would they let Daddy bring him his books? He was halfway through North and South, that was Momma’s favourite. He wanted to see if Margaret got the boy.

He wanted to go home, sleep in his own bed. It was creaky, but it was his. He wanted to not be getting hard at the sound of his other roommate. He wanted to hide under his own covers to cry, not here under fluorescent lights amid the smell of bleach and farts. 

And then he was calm. There was no warning or reason, no particular thought that crossed his mind. Only the sensation of pure peace. It spread, a warmth washing through him from his heart to his fingertips. His tumultuous thoughts settled into gentle waves. He’d be out of here soon, six months would fly by. He’d be fine meantime, no one here seemed like the ganging-up type. He was going to get through this and he was going to get out and never ever step foot in another correctional facility. No, sir. Never again. He was going to make something of himself.

That feeling found him again three years later on his fourth day of lying very still in his bed, in the dark, listening with a detached fascination to the symphony of his empty stomach. He was dimly aware that he stank but couldn’t bring himself to do anything about it. It had taken only three and a quarter weeks for Clyde to fall neck-deep in love with Jeff, and only a few glib texted words for Jeff to break up with him four hours after Clyde told him so. 

Then the hollow hungry void inside him filled with a warm light, and his mind felt clear as crystal. There was nothing wrong with him, it wasn’t his fault. He’d find someone else. There was no point wallowing and waiting. Jeff, with his newly-minted driver’s licence, his new truck, and his elevated air of social clout at school, was not worth Clyde’s consideration if Clyde was not worth his. No. 

It happened again when he most needed it, lying huddled on his side in a dusty ditch miles outside of Ramadi. He didn’t know if he’d screamed aloud or if it was just a long continuous wail inside his head at the pain. He hoped it was inside, he remembered that. Stupid. Worrying about that sort of thing when he was holding the remnants of his forearm to his chest. Trying to hold it together, to stop himself throwing his guts up when he looked at where his hand used to be, only to be reminded he was an animal made of meat and bone. But that feeling came again. A lightness, a warmth. Everything was going to be okay. He was alive. He could’ve lost so much more. He was so lucky.

That same feeling, that sudden wash of goodness, of hope, it came over Clyde more and more after the accident. When he got home everyone fussed and bothered over him, worried about his state of mind. He felt almost guilty for not being what they wanted him to be—a victim, damaged and righteously angry. He was those things, but his darkest times seemed to bring the light on faster and stronger.

———

Stensland had been there when the roadside shell sent the transport sky high, when Clyde’s hand was torn away. One’d stayed with him ever since. Through physical therapy. Through mental therapy. Through fittings for his prosthetic to his job interviews to breaking back into a jail he’d escaped from after purposefully putting himself in there. Stensland had been with Clyde every step, back in the before.

All the while, as one tried to shoulder some of Clyde’s pain, one thought and thought that one didn’t want to pretend anymore. To spend eternity in spirit only. Pretending to eat, pretending to feel the wind on one’s face, pretending to breathe in deep. One wanted to come home to a bouncing puppy. To get one’s hands dirty on a train. To feel the shell of an ear with one’s lips. One wanted to tell lies, and after forever knowing all, to be surprised by things, and to learn. One wanted to fall down and scrape one’s knee. To cry onion tears. To be utterly serious, and to howl with laughter. To have someone brush their fingers through one’s hair and to feel what it was like to take one’s shoes off at the end of a long day.

Stensland had had an eternity of eternity. Simply being a witness to humanity (and inhumanity), recording the details forever. One wanted an end. Without an end there was no reason, no story, not for one. 

Clyde’s thoughts echoed in one’s mind. _I guess the family curse caught me up after all. I could’ve done something. What am I gonna do with one hand? I’ll find out who I am, I guess. Not a soldier anymore. What the hell am I now? I should be more scared. Shouldn’t I? I guess. It hurts, will it always hurt? No one’s ever told me they love me. That’d be nice one day. Who’s going to love a one armed loser? I just want to hear that once, before I die. I could’ve died. Could’ve. I didn’t though._

So there in the medevac with one’s cheek resting atop Clyde’s head while one cradled him in one’s arms and wrapped one’s wings around them both, the seed was planted in one. One began to think about falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the child was a child,
> 
> It was the time for these questions:
> 
> Why am I me, and why not you?
> 
> Why am I here, and why not there?


	3. Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wann begann die Zeit und wo endet der Raum?
> 
> Ist das Leben unter der Sonne nicht bloß ein Traum?
> 
> Ist was ich sehe und höre und rieche
> 
> nicht bloß der Schein einer Welt vor der Welt?

Clyde never remembered his dreams.

He was a slow-waker before he signed up, and after he was discharged. The in between made him tired just thinking abut it.

But that morning he woke up and he remembered everything. 

He was reaching out to a winged figure shrouded in darkness. He could only see a silhouette fringed with a faint golden light. A hand was reaching out for his. He couldn’t see it but he knew it was there, waiting for him. He reached for it, brushed his fingertips on impossibly soft and burning skin. The moment they touched, light burst into being, brighter than the sun. Clyde couldn’t see anything, but he could feel that hand closing over his own. The figure stepped closer, and the light somehow grew brighter until the enormous wings burst into blue flame and turned to ash and dust. The light waned, the figure sharpened. High cheekbones on a porcelain pale face, the rising sun woven into a halo of hair, fiercely kind eyes fathomless as the sea, lips... lips... Clyde stopped right there. Reached his hand up to cup that soft face and then... he gasped awake.

Clyde _almost_ never remembered his dreams. 

But when he woke up that morning, he remembered those kind eyes and that pale face and those lips... He remembered and knew right deep in his soul he’d had that dream before. Over and over and over.

“Alright,” Lyle raised both hands to halt Stensland mid-sentence, “let me get this straight. You’re looking for some guy—possibly a duck—called Clyde. He’s got,” Lyle squinted at Stensland’s paper napkin notes, “maybe longish hair, maybe some facial hair, unless that,” he pointed at a dark spot, “is just brownie frosting in which case, he may or may not have facial hair, it’s unclear from your portrait. And you’ve narrowed the guy’s location to the continental United States.”

Stensland ummed a mercilessly long um. “Yeah.” One thought again, raising one’s eyes to the ceiling of Lyle’s apartment. “That’s pretty much it. More memories may arise. Are you going to eat that?” Stensland picked a chicken wing off the plate on Lyle’s lap and set to work. One’s new taste buds demanded to taste everything. _Everything._ Lyle had to physically restrain one from eating one’s third napkin.

“Don’t mind if you do,” Lyle muttered. “Listen buddy, I hate to break it to you but you’re going to have to remember a whole lot more if you wanna find this guy. A full name? Maybe narrow it down to one city, at least one state?”

“I suppose,” Stensland garbled through a mouthful. “This is delightful! The crunchy exterior juxtaposing the tender and juicy interior. Seasoned and fried to golden crumbed perfection.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

Stensland abandoned the chicken to fossick under one’s shirt, poking a greasy, salted finger into one’s belly button. “What’s this hole for?”

“What? Oh. Nothing, it’s just there.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, man. It’s, like, from when you were born. Where the umbilical cord was.”

“Um-bil-i-cool,” Stensland rolled the world around and tasted all the parts of it. One stopped and stared into the middle distance. “I wasn’t born.”

“No?” Lyle laughed reaching for the TV remote. “Where’d you come from, a cabbage patch?”

Stensland dug around a bit more, “I don’t think so.” One licked one’s finger, made a moue of disgust at one’s belly button and pulled down one’s shirt.

Lyle stabbed at the remote.

“Ooh, what are we watching on your televisual screen?”

Lyle flicked through his movies and stopped, wafting a hand at the screen. “You wanna watch Logan? You’ll love it.”

Stensland blink-fluttered and then flutter-blinked. “Say that again,” one asked, one’s hands shooting up to fist one’s mad halo of hair.

“What? You’ll love it? Logan?”

Stensland puffed the air out of one’s cheeks in a loud phwwch. One mouthed it silently, narrowed one’s eyes to better savour the shape of it. _Logan Logan Logan._ Yes. Yes, that piece slotted into the puzzle with nary a hitch. 

One tested it out loud to make sure, and it was the most wonderful sound he’d heard with his brand new ears. “Logan. Clyde Logan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When did time begin, and where does space end?
> 
> Is life under the sun not just a dream?
> 
> Is what I see and hear and smell
> 
> not just an illusion of a world before the world?


	4. Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Als das Kind Kind war,
> 
> ging es mit hängenden Armen,
> 
> wollte der Bach sei ein Fluß,
> 
> der Fluß sei ein Strom,
> 
> und diese Pfütze das Meer.

If Clyde inherited his quiet thoughtful nature from anyone it was his mawmaw. She’d been the first one in Daddy’s family who ever went to college. In fact, she was there until her dying day what with being a professor of theology and all. That fateful day a freak lightning bolt hit her right out of the clear blue sky. That wasn’t what killed her though, no. The culprit was a huge grape that got stuck in her windpipe later on that day.

Back when he was small enough to curl up on her lap while she graded papers, Clyde remembered asking her why she didn’t come to church with pawpaw. And from that day—when his mawmaw told him she didn’t believe anymore and why—he stopped going to church and started spending Sundays with her and her books and her robe that smelled faintly of lavender and bacon grease.

He wished she was still here now. He had so many questions and he knew she would have had the answers. Maybe not _the_ answers but answers nonetheless. But she wasn’t here. Not anymore. Instead Clyde had to make do.

“Hey Earl.” Clyde held out a beaded bottle of beer. “You believe in angels?” He squinted into the half empty parking lot where oily puddles shone orange in the streetlight.

“Saw an angel once.” Earl took the bottle and cheersed Clyde before taking a swig. 

Clyde raised a brow. “You did?”

“Yup. Flew right over as I was sanding the rust spots off my truck. Ugly fucker.”

“You sure it wasn’t some kind of big bird. A condor or something?”

Earl took a drag on his cigarette and spat. “Reckon it could’ve been a bird.”

“You believe in angels?” Clyde handed Jimmy the hammer. 

“Sure I do,” Jimmy mumbled around the nails he was holding in his mouth. He levelled another shelf on Sadie’s new trophy case and held a nail ready. “I got a date with the Easter Bunny next week too.”

Clyde pouted and looked over at Sadie perched up on the porch railing. She shrugged and swung her legs.

“Mel, do you believe in angels?”

“Why?” Mellie asked, her eyes glued to the TV. They sat side-by-side, microwave dinners balanced on their laps.

Clyde stabbed his fork at an unidentifiable chunk of something. “No, no reason.”

“You know who you need to ask?”

“God?”

Mellie snorted. “Which one? There’s only one place around here for all your”—she waggled sparkling fingers at Clyde—“winged spirit needs.”

“Church?”

“Church? The hell they know about angels? I mean Madam Nikbin.”

Clyde choke-coughed on a sad piece of broccoli. “The palm reader at the mall? With all the dream catchers and crystals and fairy dolls in the window?”

Mellie banged an invisible bell with her fork. “Now there’s someone who knows what she’s talking about.”

———

Lyle had better things to do, he was almost sure of it. Instead he was poring through every social media, every news story and blog he could find with the name Clyde Logan attached to it. They were narrowing down likely suspects according to Stensland’s descriptions and paper napkin portrait, going systematically though each search result. 

Lyle had to admit he was kind of having fun pretending to be a detective. He added another “potential” tab to the 57 already open and hoped his laptop survived until Stensland could check them all. 

“Lyyyyyyyle!” A panicked cry came from the bathroom. 

Lyle jolted and twisted in his seat. “You okay in there buddy?” he called.

There was an almighty splash before the bathroom door flew open and Stensland skittered out, naked as the day one had never been born.

“Lyle, something is very very wrong,” Stensland’s voice quivered with a tinge of panic.

“What’s going oooohhhh noo. No. Nope!” Lyle covered his eyes. “Stensland. Come on. We’ve talked about this, remember? About clothes and boundaries?”

“Yeah.” Stensland shrugged.

“Did you forget the part about genitals, and consent from the people you’re waving them around at?”

Stensland wrinkled one’s mouth in thought and looked down at one’s very erect and twitching penis covered in Mr Bubble. 

“Oh.” One pouted. “I was just playing with it in the bath and it felt kind of nice so I kept playing and then everything started to feel kind of tingly and then it started getting all big and hard and, well, I got scared.”

Lyle sighed and unfolded himself from the couch. Though dying a little inside his own private bastion of heterosexuality, he rallied everything he had to calmly usher a dripping Stensland back into the bathroom.

“It’ll be fine. Listen, just get back in the tub, keep playing with it. It’ll feel really intense for a bit, and then stuff will come out of it.”

Stensland looked back over one’s shoulder at Lyle, one’s brow wrinkled with confusion. “You’re sure it’s okay?” 

“I promise, it’s totally normal.” Lyle closed the door and called back through it. “Just rub one out, clean yourself up, dry yourself off, then we’ll talk biology, okay.”

“Okay,” Stensland whispered forlornly. One scissor-stepped carefully back into the tub and slid down into the still-warm water, settling one’s head back. One bit one’s lip, and sent careful, tentative fingers tip-toeing down one’s belly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the child was a child
> 
> It walked with its arms swinging,
> 
> wanted the brook to be a river,
> 
> the river to be a torrent,
> 
> and this puddle to be the sea.


	5. Really Unreal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wie kann es sein, daß ich, der ich bin,
> 
> bevor ich wurde, nicht war,
> 
> und daß einmal ich, der ich bin,
> 
> nicht mehr der ich bin, sein werde?

Clyde Logan was in love. 

He watched as his sweetheart walked towards him with hips a-swinging, and doing that adorable thing where they poked their tongue out to concentrate on not spilling the two steaming mugs of cocoa they were carrying. 

Clyde grinned. He ought to get up and help but he had a better view of that beautiful long bare body from his humid nest of bedclothes. 

“I put a whole handful of marshmallows in there, just for you, baby.” 

Clyde took the proffered mug with his left hand and raised the covers for his darling to slip back in. They snuggled back together side by side, one leg each over the other’s.

Twinkling green eyes blinked at Clyde from over the top of the steaming cocoa. The air smelled like sugar. 

“I love you.” 

Clyde’s heart swelled until his whole body was beating. He wondered if the room was big enough for him to keep smiling. 

“Can I keep it?“ 

Somewhere between the door and the bed his honeybun had acquired a green mesh top, little pink nipples poking right on through the holes. Clyde laughed.

“Only if Mellie says so, baby.”

His darling cackled—the sweetest sound. Clyde couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. Their cocoa spilled on the crisp white sheets with their rolling laughter, and the marshmallows in Clyde’s began to foam and expand, filling the room with a sugary cloud…

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?”

Clyde woke up breathing fast and shallow. He swallowed a bitter stone in his throat and dragged himself upright on the living room sofa. He cracked sleepy eyes open and blinked away the crust, wondering, for a moment, where he was.

Mellie was unzipping her boot and staring questions at Clyde. She was good at that. 

“Guess I was tired.” Clyde stared down at his stump. He still had a hand in his dreams, but now it itched somewhere in the space his hand used to be. He scratched his face instead.

Mellie peeled her boot off and flopped back in the armchair, leg bent into her lap while she rubbed her foot. 

“Uh huh,” she said, unconvinced. They sat quietly a while before Mellie let him off the hook with a quiet, hmm.

“You’re not going to believe who had the gall to come in for a cut and colour today.” 

As he sat back, chin on his chest and hair a drape of sleepy fluff, Clyde listened to Mellie’s day while his dream slipped away. As his heart broke from losing something he never had, he wished he’d never started remembering his damn dreams.

“Oh.”

It was the softest oh. A breathy oh. An oh that came straight from the soul seat and barely disturbed the air molecules in its wake. Stensland drifted one’s fingers towards the glow of the screen.

“Oh.”

Eight hundred and seventy-three Clyde Logans had turned out not to be Clyde Logan. But the eight hundred and seventy-fourth Clyde Logan, well—“Oh”— _that_ was Clyde Logan. 

“Oh. Oh. OhohohowowOH!” Stensland clutched at one’s chest. One could feel one’s heart attempting a grand exit from one’s rib cage. One had been allowed far too much time entertaining oneself on WebMD to brush it aside as non life threatening. 

With one’s eyes still glued to the beautiful face on the screen, the face that had started all this, one’s other hand flailed, slapping Lyle right in the throat. 

“Gabrielle Union Egg McMuffin!” Lyle screamed awake, jolting his head up from where it had been lolling on the back of the couch, mouth a wide snoring flytrap. 

Stensland’s karate chop to the throat had latched on and become a tight grip on Lyle’s shirt, taking with it some chest hair and a nipple. Lyle’s litany of owowow joined Stensland’s ohohoh. 

Lyle peeled Stensland’s grip away from his chest but it held tight instead to his hand.

“Oh, Lyle.” Stensland pointed their joined hands at the screen where his other hand traced along a long serious jaw with a military-grade set to it. In an article about a small unit of injured marines coming home a couple of years ago and there he was, under an ad for car insurance. 

“Wow!” Lyle patted Stensland’s white knuckles. “Those are some amazing ears!”

“That’s him.” Stensland held his palm to the screen and woobled a dozy grin at Lyle. “That’s Clyde Logan,” he squeaked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How can it be that I, who I am,
> 
> didn’t exist before I came to be,
> 
> and that, someday, I, who I am,
> 
> will no longer be who I am?


	6. Everybody Hurts. Sometimes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apart, Clyde and Stensland hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Als das Kind Kind war,
> 
> warf es einen Stock als Lanze gegen den Baum,
> 
> und sie zittert da heute noch.

It had been a weird day, right from the start. Clyde wondered if it was an omen, this feeling he couldn’t quite focus on. The old Logan curse coming for him again, though he’d never felt it coming for him the first time. Before that bomb went off, his hand with it.

He’d woken up with a sense of unease, like he was waiting for something. He didn’t know what it was or whether it was good or bad but there was _something_ , and that unease stayed with him the entire day. On edge, his awareness was heightened and had him jumping at every sound and movement.

No wonder then when a car backfired in Duck Tape’s parking lot, he dropped the bottle of bourbon he’d been pouring, and ducked, crouching under the bar with his head down. 

It had been a while since panic had come to visit, an unwelcome guest always. He’d been doing just fine on his meds but he’d been missing something for a few months now. He’d felt it even if he couldn’t name it. A light that had been with him for so long he realised, only now when it was darkest, that it was gone. 

But somewhere in that mind-soup, amid the lizard-brain panic, in the black void left by that unknowable light, Clyde Logan found a tiny burning ember of strength. It flickered and from it burst a flame, small but strong. The flame whisper-told him that he was Clyde Theophilus Logan and he had all the strength he needed to look after his damn self. 

Clyde opened his eyes. That mini fridge full of sodas and local craft beers right in front of him—that was there and it was real, all cold light and beaded bottles. It belonged in the bar, the bar he was in right now. He took a breath, forcing himself to take it in slowly along with the smell of stale beer near the sticky floor he was crouched on. 

There, the sound of people talking. Not shouting, not screaming, just talking—like always. He held his breath, counted to eight. Those were his knees weren’t they? Solid, real. He rubbed his right hand along the plane of his denim-clad thigh. Real. Along with that spot he’d dropped ketchup on, a sensory tacky detour on the journey his fingertips took along his leg. He breathed out slow for eight. Held his breath again. 

Clyde cycled though his slowed-down breathing until someone rapped on the bar. He nodded himself brave and toddled up to standing. Clyde Logan may have lost his guiding light but the bright shine of his own star was more than enough to light his way. 

“What can I get for you?”

_____________________________________________

Lyle snuffled and whapped a sleepy hand at the cobwebs floating over his face, until a quiet ominous whisper creep-crawled into his ear and he froze. 

“It’s time.”

It took him a terrified few seconds, immobile at the thought of ghosts and demons, before he remembered Stensland was a thing that existed in his life now. “Nnnhmm?” 

“It’s Tuesday.” 

Lyle felt his mattress dip as Stensland crawled under the covers behind him and spooned up close. 

“We’re going to find Clyde Logan today, Lyle.”

“Great.” Lyle tried to burrow his entire self under his pillow. “Stens. Are you naked again?” he asked, sleep gravel dancing in his throat.

“Nuh-uh.” Stensland cuddled closer and slotted one’s chin over Lyle’s shoulder. “I’ve got my green jimmy-jams on. Plus I made sure my willy was all nice and soft and tucked away for a nap.”

“Great,” Lyle said again, disappearing his face into his pillow.

“Yeah. It was standing up when I awoke, so I just rubbed it like you said to do, until it spat all its willy milk out and went all floppy again.”

Lyle sighed. “Thanks for that, bud. Appreciate it.”

Stensland beamed at the praise and snuggled happily.

The giddy joy Stensland had once they got to the airport was nothing to one’s vibrating excitement when they began to taxi toward the runway. Take-off had one’s hands flapping and grabbing at Lyle’s arm to, “Look, Lyle, look!”

But soon one quieted. One stared out as they soared above the clouds, face pressed against the window. It was almost an hour later when the drinks trolley rattled down the aisle that Lyle noticed something was amiss. 

“Stens, you want something to drink?”

Stensland said nothing, only curled away impossibly closer to the window and shrugged one’s shoulder.

Stensland’s chest tightened as one watched the earth pass by beneath them, glimpsed through breaks in the clouds. One felt unbalanced, as though one was about to topple over even though one was sitting. 

Without all one’s memories one had felt adrift. Something was missing. And as one’s memories waxed and waned one had assumed that something was Clyde. 

Now, as they flew high above the ground, the memory of one’s wings, one’s existence in the before, sharpened in one’s mind and hit one with a fiery blast of pain. Two blistering points of agony where once sat limbs made of fire and air that had borne one aloft in the heavens. Stensland crushed one’s teary eyes shut and gritted one’s teeth, letting out a whimper.

“Hey.” Lyle’s hand fell soft and heavy on one’s shoulder. “You okay there, Stens?” 

A small sobbed, “It hurts,” tumbled from Stensland’s lips as one’s memories flooded back, crushing him all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the child was a child,
> 
> It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,
> 
> And it quivers there still today.


	7. The Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they lived flappily ever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Als das Kind Kind war,
> 
> erwachte es einmal in einem fremden Bett
> 
> und jetzt immer wieder.
> 
> Lines at the end shamelessly bastardised from Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire.

Today was a good day, Clyde could feel it. 

The rash from his new lotion had cleared up at last—he could wear his arm again without wanting to scratch his skin off. Mellie had left him the last glitter-topped cupcake from Sadies’s Lizzo themed birthday party—while Jimmy and Bobby Jo weren’t thrilled by it, Mellie had absolutely revelled in her niece declaring herself 100%, that bitch. And he still had one clean shirt left for work before laundry day. 

Yep. It was going to be a good day.

Lyle and Stensland had dropped their bags off at their dingy motel before heading off to the local library for more research, one of them more enthusiastic than the other.

“What do we do now?” Stensland asked as they marched downtown. Well, Lyle marched. There’s only so much marching to be done in socks and sandals. Stensland shuffled, quickly. 

“No idea. We could check local papers. Maybe ask around?”

Stensland’s usually fathomless optimism seemed to have sublimated on the flight and now nothing could fill the bottomless pit that one’s newly remembered losses had excavated.

“We’ll never find him, Lyle. Look at this place. It’s not exactly a small town where everyone knows everyone’s name.”

Lyle stopped mid-step and almost toppled onto his face when Stensland collided with his back.

“Stensland!” Lyle spun around and clasped Stensland’s shoulders. “You’re a genius!”

“I am?”

Lyle already had his phone out searching for every bar in town. In all the time he’d spent as a kid watching re-runs of _Cheers_ , he’d never once thought that one day that catchy theme song with level-9 ear-worm powers would come in handy.

“New plan!” Lyle said as he strode off in the direction of the nearest bar on the map.

“Where are we going?” Stensland jogged after him.

“Where everybody knows your name,” Lyle called over his shoulder.

“Mine?”

“No, not you! But someone around here has got to know Clyde Logan. Come on.”

Clyde’s good day had turned into a good night. Quiet, but not so quiet he had nothing to do. An unexpected rush of generous tips from out-of-towners, and the third stall in the toilets hadn’t flooded once. 

It was getting on to midnight on this good day, and Mellie had arrived to drive him home. There were only two more months until he got his license back. He’d been thinking of what to give Mellie as thanks but for now, closing up so they could get on home would have to do.

“Let’s just go home, Lyle. We’ve been walking for hours.” Stensland shuffled listlessly behind Lyle as they walked through the near empty parking lot of a place called Duc Tape, the blown out “k” of Duck only registering as Duct to Lyle’s eyes. 

“Just this last one, we’re right here and it wasn’t even on the map. Then we can pick up the rest tomorrow, and Thursday.” Lyle clomped up the steps of the bar just as the lights on the sign winked out.

“Oh, well. Looks like they’re closed.” Stensland turned around and started walking away.

“Dude! Someone’s still in there closing up,” Lyle called, his hand on the door. Stensland turned and crossed one’s arms in a grump. “Fine!” Lyle shouted. “I’ll go in and ask. Wait here, okay.”

The bar was empty, chairs up on tables, the floor shiny and freshly mopped. Lyle saw the toe points of a pair of white and silver cowboy boots before his eyes travelled up long tanned legs, past the frayed hem of some legendary Daisy Dukes, a pair of crossed arms, a cocked head, and raised sculpted brows. 

“We’re closed,” Mellie drawled.

“Uhh,” Lyle said, immediately forgetting why he was there. “Cools.” _Coools?_ “I just...”  
He remembered Stensland waiting outside and bravely forged on in the face of steady bright eyes that seemed to be passing judgment on every syllable he managed to stutter out. “Uhhhm, we were wondering if you know a Clyde Logan that lives around here?” 

Mellie did not flinch. “Who’s we?”

“Me and my friend.” Lyle gestured at the closed door behind him. “We’re looking for Clyde Logan, he’s an old friend...” Lyle swallowed. “Of my friend.” He gestured again at absolutely no one behind him.

Mellie’s brows lifted impossibly higher. 

It was him, stacking a pile of silvery barrel things. Stensland had been wandering around the building when one heard noises from the back. Now one could feel one’s heart drumming a beat beneath the skin below one’s ear as one watched the way Clyde ducked his head as he worked, the way he stood with his feet pointed toward each other as he hoisted each keg with one arm. 

It was impossible to order the thoughts as they flew at one. First, what a miraculous thing, to feel one’s heart beat. To be aware every second that one’s own death was a mere faulty electrical signal away. And second, what was this strange feeling? It began deep and low, somewhere between one’s kidneys but just in front of one’s spine. It made a free-fall dive down and then rose like gall. And all because the man before one had tucked his hair behind his ear when it got in his face. 

Stensland wanted to wrap him in one’s arms and tell him just how important he was to the world, to one. 

As he hoisted the last keg, it slipped from Clyde’s hand but it didn’t crash to the ground with the loud metallic clang he steeled himself for. Two luminous hands seemed to materialise out of the night to catch it.

“Thank y—,” the words dried up in Clyde’s mouth as his eyes focussed on Stensland. A frown tilled furrows on his brow. “It’s you.” The words came out in a breathless whisper. Clyde squinted and said louder, “It’s you.” 

Stensland felt one’s heart swell. “Yes,” one said, and carefully placed the keg down.

Clyde stuck his hand out. “I’m...”

“Clyde.” Stensland beamed and took his hand, the dark hole inside one already filling again, illuminated by Clyde’s light.

There was no surprise for Clyde, he only felt that something he’d long been waiting for was finally here. It was here in his hand, burning with the same light he’d seen in his dreams, the same hand that was always held out to him. “What’s your name?”

“I was called Suriel once, but not anymore.”

Clyde nodded. He stepped closer. “I’ve dreamt of a stranger, someone to share my bliss with. I never learned their name. I know it’s you.”

Stensland closed the space between them. One wound one’s arms around Clyde’s strong back and rested one’s head on his shoulder while Clyde cradled one’s head with his prosthetic hand.

Clyde was here in one’s arms as he’d been so many times. But, oh, what it was to hold him now in one’s human embrace. Two beating hearts. Two hot breaths making whirls of mist in the night air. One was learning what it was to be amazed. “Can I stay?” Stensland held one’s breath.

Clyde turned his face into one’s cloud of mad fire-touched hair and breathed in the sweet smell of cheap shampoo. “There’s no such thing as destiny, but I believe in decision. You decide.”

Stensland smiled into the fabric of Clyde’s liquor and smoke-scented shirt and squeezed him tight. “Then I’ll stay,” one said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the child was a child,
> 
> it awoke once in a strange bed,
> 
> and now does so again and again.
> 
> For a_secret_scribbler who is engaged to this fic. The wedding will be beautiful.


End file.
